A Game of Holochess
by the-lady-brett
Summary: HanLeia, enroute to Bespin, spend the night drunkenly ruminating on their newfound relationship.


**A Game of Holochess  
**by **the-lady-brett  
**  
Han/Leia, en-route to Bespin, spend the night drunkenly ruminating on their newfound relationship. __

'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'   
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street  
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?  
'What shall we ever do?'  
The hot water at ten.  
And if it rains, a closed car at four.  
And we shall play a game of chess,  
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

**A GAME OF HOLOCHESS.**

"It will never work out between us."

He laughs at her dramatic flair, how she speaks like an actress from the holos. She rather looks like one too, stretched out languidly beside him, her hair in loose, messy curls. Her smile is enigmatic, almost coy, as if this is a secret she's known about for years, and has only now casually decided to reveal.

"And why not?" he inquires, mostly just to humor her. He takes another swig of his ale, making sure to keep the bottle far away from her.

"Because you," she begins, pointing a lazy finger in his face, "you will break my heart."

"What makes you say that?" He's still playing along with her little drunken ramblings for her sake, although he doesn't like this territory. The borders are undrawn, the waters are uncharted, the stars are unmapped.

"Just you wait," comes her reply. "It won't be long, and then you'll see that I was right."

He pauses before answering. "I don't plan on breaking anymore hearts."

"Mmm, I'm sure you say that to all your women…"

"All my women?" he scoffs. "There's only you."

"Is that so?" she says.

"You're drunk," he tells her. "You won't remember this conversation in the morning. It doesn't matter what either one of us says."

"If it doesn't matter, then why won't you… why won't you say it?" she inquires.

He can tell this query isn't alcohol-induced; somehow, she can drift in and out of sobriety at will. Perhaps this is a talent of all politicians.

"This your first time?" he asks, changing the subject.

Her eyebrow arches and her lips scrunch up—not quite a frown, but not quite a smile, either.

"The ale," I mean, he returns, swishing the liquid, "the ale." 

Her subsequent burst of laughter is intercut by a series of hiccups. She covers her mouth politely, as a good princess should, then removes it, muttering, "To hell with it." She snatches the bottle from his weak grasp.

"You really shouldn't have anymore, you know."

The amusement ends here. "Oh, so now you're telling me what to do, are you?"

"Nice change, isn't it?" he quips, catching her wrist before she can tip the neck to her mouth. "There are times when you should take orders, Sweetheart, and this is one of them."

"You could—you could take some orders, too, you know," she replies.

He curses himself for bringing them back to the subject.

"You've been ordering me around for three years. I think I've fulfilled any sort of order-taking requirement for this lifetime."

"Not orders from me," she amends. "Well, maybe. I don't really know, I suppose. Perhaps, perhaps not. But you won't even try?"

"You know I can't. Why won't you let this go?"

Now she frowns. "Shouldn't you be flattered, or something?"

He notices she's starting to sound less and less like herself. Maybe she's been this way all along, but he's only now starting to notice. Too much alcohol for both of them.

"Flattered?" he echoes. It comes out almost sarcastically, though he doesn't mean for it to.

She sighs. "See? I told you."

"Told me what?" He's so lost and confused right now that he can't even find his own toes (of course not—they're tucked awkwardly beneath her legs). The only thing he knows for certain is that he will never understand her—and that he should never let her near ale ever again.

She rolls away from him, extracting herself from their strange entanglement. (There, he sees, are his toes). 

Uncharacteristically, she doesn't even snag a sheet to wrap herself in; she simply picks up some stray clothes from the floor—his shirt, her leggings, one of his socks—and marches towards the 'fresher. He quickly slips on a pair of undershorts.

She leaves the door slightly ajar, so that they can continue their correspondence. "That we'll never work out," she explains, tugging on the pants. She lifts the shirt over her head and throws the garment on backwards.

He watches as she stares at the lone sock, as though perplexed by it. She seems to be debating whether to grab its partner, too, or to return it to the floor. Finally, she decides to just toss it in the sink.

"I just can't figure you out."

She walks back out and scratches her head, throwing her curls about. Looking down, she says, "Well, I've always heard the first time really does something to your brain."

"The ale?" he asks quietly.

"Hmm?" She snaps her head up to look at him; she hadn't heard.

"Nothing," he tells her, "nothing at all."

"Fine. If you say so." 

"I say so." He watches as she crosses her arms beneath her breasts—which he can still see, almost clearly, through his white shirt. It nearly drives him mad. "Come back to bed. Why'd you get dressed, anyway?" He's probably made her angry, though he's not sure how. Well, he supposes he knows.

She takes a seat on the edge of the bed, close but still far all the same. "Am I going to hate myself in the morning?"

Her question startles him, especially since he's afraid to think of what she may be referring to. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I didn't know you… felt that way."

"The ale," she says with the hint of a grin, (perhaps she meant the ale before, too), "I mean the ale. I somehow feel any sort of drink you'd swear by would give killer hangovers."

He reaches out and runs a finger along her thigh; they lock gazes. "You'll be okay."

She falls back onto the bed. He stretches down beside her, his temple pressed near her hip.

After a long moment of silence: "What will we do when we get there?"

"Leave as soon as possible."

"I take it you don't like your friend."

"It's not that," he mumbles. He leaves the, It's just that he doesn't like _me_, unsaid.

"Then what is it?"

"We've got to get you home," he explains. "Well, to the base, anyway."

"Oh. Right—the base."

"Forget so soon?"

"No, I just… I've liked it here with you. With us. Almost alone, together. It's nice, isn't it?"

"Makes me wish we'd done it sooner."

"Not me," she says.

"No?"

"No. Everything that's happened to us over these three years, it's all led up to this, to now. If things had happened sooner, who's to say we'd be right here, right now, together like this?"

"Who's to say we wouldn't?"

He feels her shake her head. "No, no, I think I'm right. It only makes sense that way."

"But," he inquires, speaking before thinking, "why would I have planned to leave, if we were together?"

"You're planning to leave now," she points out to him. "You say there's no choice in the matter. So, if we'd started things sooner, you'd stay, just like that?"

"No," he admits. "I guess not. But if you'll notice, both stories end the same." 

"If you can't stay, will you at least come back?"

"I can't promise you a thing, sweetheart."

"You'll kiss me goodbye, won't you?"

"I'll kiss you right now."

"That's not what I asked."

But he repositions himself so as to lean to kiss her; she responds, warm and soft and loving, just as he'd always imagined her to be. "We should get some sleep," he declares, sitting cross-legged. She's still sprawled across the bed. "We'll be there soon. You feel all right?"

"I just feel strange, she says," sitting up straight. "Confused. _Fuzzy_. Like this isn't really happening, like we aren't really here. Like you didn't kiss me, like we didn't… is that the ale, or us?"

His frank answer surprises them both. "Us."

"Drunk on love," she says sleepily. He can hear her chuckling, a little crazily, like this is all some sick joke. She buries herself beneath the warm blankets, her feet smacking him as she readjusts herself. "I've heard people call it that, you know, but I've never believed them. I don't know if I even do, now. I mean, it's different from that, from the ale, or any sort of drink. You can sleep that off, but you can't sleep us off. Not us."

He lies beside her. He tries to squelch the thoughts of all the nights ahead of him, the nights where he'll have to do just that. He realizes with a pang that can do nothing more about this than just agree with her.

"No. Not us."


End file.
